And yet as she sat here now in her mother’s bedroom, holding the book she’d been reading from aloud, she missed him with an ache that seemed to be growing more acute and stronger by the minute. She was constantly bombarded with images of their time together, and, worse, she’d even caught herself in a daydream of them together, with a family, before she could stop herself. Having never believed she was the slightest bit maternal, it was as if she’d suddenly tapped into some universal compulsion to have a baby. With him.
Her mother shifted restlessly and Lucy looked at her, smoothing some hair off her brow. She’d fallen asleep as Lucy had read to her.
Lucy hadn’t had the heart to fight the uphill battle to look for a new job yet, so she’d spent the last two weeks coming to see her mum every day, but time was running out. She needed to get work fast. Her mouth firmed as the familiar pain rose. More than that, she needed to forget about—
‘Lucy, love, someone here to see you.’
Lucy looked up and blushed. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts she hadn’t heard the woman come in. She stood up, and as she followed the nurse out she wondered who on earth it could be…here of all places.
When she came out into the corridor the world swirled crazily. So crazily that she must have swayed, because before she knew it Ari was in front of her and holding onto her, looking down into her eyes.
With a deep inner cry of dismay Lucy wondered if she was conjuring him up, and if it was in fact just her mother’s consultant. She blinked. Ari. She blinked again. Ari.
From somewhere deeply welcome she came back to earth and pulled herself free of his touch. She stalked to a small empty waiting area nearby. She crossed her arms and turned around, feeling her cheeks grow hot as she took in the reality of facing him again. Those recent images of small dark-haired babies mocked her.
‘What are you doing here?’ She injected all the frost she could muster into her voice, but when Ari winced imperceptibly she treacherously felt nothing but remorse.
He looked awful. As if he hadn’t slept in a week or shaved in days. He was wearing jeans and a sweater, nothing like the cool urbane businessman she’d first seen at a distance two years ago. He was more like the man she’d seen on Paros. Her heart clenched painfully.
He looked at her, and she quailed inwardly but tipped up her chin. When he spoke she had to strain to listen.
‘I thought that here might be the only place you’d speak to me. Please forgive me for intruding on your personal space with your mother.’
One fire died in Lucy’s belly and another started. Her arms relaxed fractionally. How was it that he still had the power to surprise her, damn him?
‘Lucy, I want you to come back to Greece with me. Right now. I want to show you something. I need to talk to you but I can’t…’ He looked around for a moment. ‘Not here…’
Lucy’s arms tightened again. She shook her head fiercely. Go back to Greece? He had to be kidding. The thought of being in close proximity to this man was about as dangerous as sky-diving without a parachute.
He registered her reaction and Lucy saw something flicker in his eyes.
‘Lucy, please.’
Something in the quality of his voice made her stop, but still she shook her head. Nothing on this earth would persuade her to set herself up to be hurt again. She crushed the treacherous need to know answers: why did he want her to go to Greece? Why wasn’t he sweeping in here and demanding to know why she hadn’t taken the job? It was what she might have expected. Why wasn’t he acting like the proud, arrogant man she knew? And—the worst question of all—why had it taken him two weeks to come after her?
Ari’s jaw clenched and something trickled down Lucy’s spine. She saw a glimpse of the man she knew. Hard and implacable.
‘Very well, if the only way I can persuade you to come is by threatening to reveal to the press that your mother is here, then so be it.’
Lucy gasped and went icy cold. On some level she was certain that Ari would never do such a thing, but on another level she wasn’t absolutely sure, and the fact that he was even threatening such a thing made her feel acutely disappointed, and if she was disappointed what did that say about her own pathetically skewed judgment?
‘You absolute bastard.’
He stepped forward and she stepped back, seeing colour flash through his cheeks. He held out a hand imperiously, and when she didn’t move he just dropped it and said, sounding utterly defeated, ‘I don’t know where that came from. I’m sorry. Of course I wouldn’t do that to you or your mother. I just want you to come with me so that I can show you something and talk to you…I promise that if you want to return after you’ve seen it and we’ve talked, I’ll bring you straight back here.’
Lucy looked at him for a long moment. She was already starting to drown in those green depths. The real and awful truth was that she’d go to the ends of the earth if this man asked her. A very weak part of her was saying, Go, go, go, and she could already feel resistance washing away. He was confusing her with his behaviour, with the vulnerability she’d glimpsed but couldn’t quite believe. Even so, she had every intention of keeping him to his word.
She said tightly, ‘You promise? Then you’ll leave me alone and let me find another job?’
He nodded. ‘I’ll make sure nothing stands in your way.’
Lucy waited for what seemed like an interminable moment, and then finally said, ‘I’ll get my jacket and bag.’
A scant few hours later they were landing at Athens airport, and Lucy still felt slightly winded at knowing that she’d been sitting at her mother’s bedside just hours before. The steward opened the plane door and Ari stood and held out a hand. Lucy looked at it. They hadn’t spoken a word on the flight. Ari had been sternly cold.
Feeling intense trepidation, she put her hand in his and let him pull her up. He led her out, and then they were climbing into a nearby helicopter, which was lifting into the clear blue sky within minutes.
Lucy’s hands were tightly clasped in her lap, and she avoided looking at Ari as much as possible. After a while Lucy could see that they were circling an island, and she recognised Paros. A mixture of sheer pleasure and intense pain gripped her. If he’d brought her here just to—